U.S. Ambassador Mike Huckabee said Friday that Washington is in talks with Gulf Arab states on taking a role in governing Gaza after the conflict.
Huckabee said there had been conversations around an interim governing structure involving Gulf Arab states, potentially with the U.S. taking on a supervisory role, with a decision on a permanent arrangement to be made later.
"It's a discussion. It's not something that has been accepted by the administration, by Israel, by anyone. I'm not familiar with anything that is ready for signature," he said.
Huckabee did not say when the talks took place or which Gulf states had been involved. The Gulf states did not immediately respond to requests for comment outside normal business hours.
Reuters reported in January that the UAE had discussed with the U.S. and Israel participating in an interim post-war Gaza administration that included the Palestinian Authority. In May, it reported the U.S. had separately discussed the possibility of itself leading a temporary post-war administration.
The PA, which exercises limited civic rule in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and was forced out of Gaza by Hamas in 2007, has said it is ready to govern Gaza with international support.
But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is accused of war crimes and carrying out genocide in Gaza, opposes PA involvement and claimed there will never be a Palestinian state. The creation of such a state is one of the conditions the UAE has set for taking part in a post-war Gaza plan.
Netanyahu has also declared that Israel must retain overall security control alongside an Arab-led civilian administration. Others in his right-wing coalition, however, want to annex Gaza.
Israel's radical Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who wants to annex Gaza and is known for his atrocious remarks about Palestinians, this week said that he was negotiating with the U.S. on how to divide Gaza once the war ends. Huckabee said he was not aware of such talks.
Hamas has acknowledged it will no longer govern after the war but has refused to discuss disarmament.
"They have to give up. They can't continue to think that they have a future," Huckabee said at the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem.
Israel's military this week launched a ruthless ground offensive on Gaza City, where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, devastated by Tel Aviv's genocidal war, are sheltering.
The military claims thousands of Hamas fighters are in the city and has ordered the population to leave, anticipating intense fighting, even though there is nowhere safe to escape in the blockaded enclave.
Amid growing international outrage, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Tuesday called the events "horrendous" and said the war was morally, politically and legally intolerable.
Huckabee also said former British Prime Minister Tony Blair was working on a plan for post-war Gaza, though he was not aware of the details. Blair met with President Donald Trump last month. The Tony Blair Institute declined to comment.
Asked what message Secretary of State Marco Rubio delivered on the Gaza City operation during his visit to Israel this week, Huckabee said that the U.S. recognized that "Israel has to do what it has to do to get its hostages back and end the war."
Israel says around 20 hostages are still alive in Gaza after being captured in the Hamas attack in October 2023. Hamas is also believed to be holding the bodies of 28 dead hostages.
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have fled Gaza City since Netanyahu ordered the military on Aug. 8 to take control there, but a greater number have stayed put, either in battered homes among the ruins or in makeshift tent camps.